Goalie Basic Skills

For hockey goalies the fundamentals are Stance, Movement, and Angles.

█ BASIC GOALIE Stance—Ready Position

Stand with your feet just wider than shoulder width apart. Do not bend at the waist instead Bend your knees and bring them forward and together while bringing your butt straight down. Plant your weight on the inside edges of your skates; let your ankles bend. in this position you are well balanced. From this position you can quickly and surely move sideways. Hold your hands out in front of you. Hold your catcher in front and to the outside so that its palm faces forward. You should be able to see it out of the corner of your eye. Because you can see your catch glove, you can move it to catch the puck. Hold your stick in a vertical plane in front of you about 8" away from your skates. The middle of the blade should be halfway in between your feet. Keep the blade on the ice at all times. Your coach or another player should be able to pass his stick between your gloves and your leg pads.

The Ready Position is stable and comfortable. It provides maximum coverage of the net and lets you move to catch, block, or otherwise deflect the puck. From the Ready Position flow all other movements.

█ Movement

You need to be able to skate better than anyone else on your team. Not necessarily faster, but with greater stability and skill. Centers and Wings only need to know how to skate forwards. Defenders also need to be able to skate backwards. Goalies, however, need to be able to skate forwards, backwards and sideways. The more natural your skating skills, the better goalie you will become.

T-Glide-to skate sideways, slightly pick up the leading foot and push away on the trailing foot, which is planted in the ice. transfer your weight to your leading foot and bring your trailing foot close to you. Throughout the shuffle, place your leading foot vertically so both edges contact the ice equally. The wider blade and shallower cut of the goalie skate will let you glide sideways.

█ Angles

Your primary way of stopping the puck from getting into the net is to place yourself between the puck and the net. You can see the semicircular goal crease in front of the goal. Imagine a line from the center of the goal net to the puck. Your job is to face the puck while staying on that line where it intersects the goal crease. The hard part of being a goalie is to stop the other half of the shots.

█ Styles

Stand-up

Ready stance is feet together, with an emphasis on staying on your feet and using the stick and skates for shots on the ice. The signature move is skating the foot out to block the shot with the inside surface of the skate.

Butterfly

Ready stance is feet shoulder width apart, knees together. The signature move is to drop to the knees with the feet splayed out, pads facing forward on the ice.

Hybrid

Ready stance isthe same as butterfly: feet shoulder width apart, knees together. Emphasis is the same as stand-up: staying on the feet to maintain mobility and using the stick for shots on the ice in the middle. The signature move is a half-V for shots on the ice to either side.